Halfway Home

Posted on by Commish

Yes, it’s hard to believe, but the SPFL regular season is officially half over. Good grief, where does time go? Most of it goes from 8am to 5pm, weekdays. Other than that, it dissipates like a vapor. At least from my side of the world.

Anyhoo … the SPFL is looking like a potful of mediocre French onion soup (myself included, most weeks) but with two finely baked, tasty cheeses atop the dish. I’m speaking, of course, of our unbeatens, the Piranha Brothers and the Bright 1s. We have a long way to go, of course, but it’s quite a dichotomy. We have the Piranha Brothers, who have played a long time in the league, but with not much success. Sticking to their draft philosophies and their no trade policies, the Brothers have always been competitive, but never dominant to this level. The Bright 1s are past champions, who agonized and sweated blood at our old school draft parties, and have established themselves as perennial powerhouses. It could be quite a showdown come Christmas time. Or … will someone else rise like the Great Pumpkin and ruin the party?

The Brothers hold a healthy three game lead in the Tommy Boy Division, with a quartet (!) of 4-3 teams, the Moops, Corn, Lightning, and Turtles, fighting it out for wild card positions. The Monkeys, at only 1-6, are not out of it just yet (see below).

In the Matt Foley Division, it’s even more decisive. At 7-0, the Bright 1s lead by four games over the Heroes, Beauty, and the No Names. The Midgets are at 2-5, while Megatron still stands with a goose egg, at 0-7 (but could that change? see below)

Should the playoffs start today, it would be:

  1. Brothers
  2. Bright 1s
  3. Moops
  4. Heroes
  5. Corn
  6. Lightning
  7. Turtles – 17 points
  8. Beauty – 36 points
  9. Monkeys – 89 points
  10. MIdgets – 126 points
  11. Names – 147 points
  12. Megatron – 172 points

Heroes 126 – Megatron 101: The Heroes held off the win hungry Megatron bunch, thanks to Josh Allen (27) and the Seattle D (20). Megatron relied on Stefon Diggs (18) and the Rams D (17).

Haven’t we all been there?

Brothers 151 – Corn 99: The Brothers continued their carnage, this week led by Alvin Kamara (31) and CMac (25), while the Corn had Tyreek (25) and Gus Edwards (22).

Western Kentucky’s helmets last week. Love the googly eyes on the front.

Turtles 133 – Monkeys 107: The Turtles picked up a nice win, but if you look closely, it was an easy management week. 7 of 8 players on the bench were on a bye and the eighth is on IR. Travis Kelce (35) and Kirk Cousins (22) led the way. The Monkeys are glad to Jonathan Taylor (22) back and Rachaad White added 17.

Curses! Dang you Saban…

Bright 1s 126 – Beauty 122: A big, big win for the 1s while Beauty and her Beasts has started to learn the hard way that the SPFL is not the cake walk it appeared early on. Jordan Addison (33) and the Ravens D (24) were keys to victory, while Jalen Hurts (23) and Saquon Barkley (21) were leading Beasts.

Highlights From the Names/ Midgets game

Names 104 – Midgets 69: Go ahead and look away now. Patrick Mahomes (37) and Braxton Berrios (13) fueled the win, while the Midgets had Kenneth Walker (15), Jared Goff (10) and no more double figure scorers.

Bitter Midgets Head Coach, Jim Mora

Moops 186 – Lightning 143: The Moops had the lineup of the week, led by Lamar Jackson (35) and D’onta Foreman (34) and that was with Bijan Robinson’s 0.4 point headache week. The Lightning piled up critical points regardless, led by Mandrews (22) and the tandem of Ford and Cook with 20 each. (Seems like my parents had a small life insurance policy with them).

I know it’s just nostalgia, but I love throwbacks to my childhood era uniforms

Next Week

  • Moops @ Corn: Big game!
  • Midgets @ Beauty
  • Megatron @ Bright 1s (I haven’t analyzed, but Yahoo is showing Megatron as an early favorite! Go get ’em, big guy!)
  • Lightning @ Monkeys
  • Heroes @ Names
  • Turtles @ Brothers

A few closing midweek observations:

  • The NFL Monday night game had 3x the viewing audience of the ALCS Game 7. Wow.
  • How in the world, did my poor beleaguered Wahoos of UVA beat North Carolina and Drake Maye last weekend? Wow.
  • The Chicago Bears starting quarterback last weekend (Tyler Bagent) once lost a game AT UVA WISE!! In his freshman year, but still… Wow.
  • Went to our 18th century funeral activity last weekend. It started at 7:30, at dusk, at a restored 1750s era house on a hillside outside Elizabethton. Beautiful fall evening, only candlelight lighting your way into the house and around the grounds where we met interpreters acting as an early Rick Sturgill (funeral director), coffin makers, shroud weavers, resurrectionists (medical supply/grave robbers) as well as customs such as “sin eating” and “corpse cakes” and other Scotch Irish funeral customs of 250 years ago. Fascinating, honestly. If you’re into that type of thing. If not, we did go to Cookout and grab a milkshake afterwards.
  • Six of eight episodes of the House of Usher now. Great acting. Some nice spookiness. Awful, awful characters though.
  • Did anyone see the AI reimagined home NFL stadiums online this week? Wow. I want virtually all of them as artwork. Here’s the Tampa Bay one, for instance. Worth your two minutes to look them up and scroll…

I guess that’s it for now. Sorry for all the Twitter links. Click them for a good laugh or ignore them at your own peril. Best of luck and enjoy the football!

The Commish